Iraq Oil Report

Plus:
*New coalition targets Kurds’ oil deals, Kurd/Shiite autonomy
*Baghdad against Kurd-deal companies, Kurds want Oil Minister out
*Oil unions press for new labor law
*Country suffers from power outage

Turkey’s Finance Minister said the U.S. invaded Iraq for its oil, United Press International reports.

“The guy from miles away is invading Iraq claiming to put an end to the unfair system,” Kemal Unakitan said, referring to U.S. President George W. Bush, the Anka News Agency reports. “But everyone knows they are after the oil. All the rest is just made up stories.”

A new agreement between a dozen political factions in Iraq aligns one-time opponents against Iraqi Kurds’ moves to unilaterally develop its oil sector, UPI reports.

“There must be a formula for maintaining the unity of Iraq and the distribution of its wealth,” Osama Najafi, of former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi’s secular National List party, said at a news conference.

More from Ned Parker in the Los Angeles Times and Christopher Chester in The Associated Press.

Also: Iraq’s Sunnis reclaim lost ground, by Sami Moubayed in Asia Times Online.

An Iraq Oil Ministry spokesman says firms that deal with Kurds will be kept out, while a Kurdish parliamentarian calls for the minister’s job, UPI reports.

Iraq’s top oil workers’ union has asked for action on a draft labor law, as called for in the constitution, in a letter to Iraq’s labor minister, UPI reports. This marks the year’s first movement by workers in Iraq’s most important sector to demand better working conditions; demands led to upheaval throughout 2007.

Insurgent attacks and shutoffs from Turkey and Kuwait are forcing major Iraqi cities into blackouts, Iraq’s Electricity Ministry says, UPI reports.

Iraq’s self-governing northern Kurdish region is negotiating with two Canadian firms on a joint venture to construct an oil refinery and continue work on a second one to boost its fledgling oil industry, its spokesman said on Sunday, The Associated Press reports.

Russia’s Lukoil says he’ll talk with Iraq Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani about the Saddam-cancelled W. Qurna deal during meetings at the World Economic Forum, Press TV reports.

Oil and the looming threat to Iraq, Special to Gulf News by Adel Safty, Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Siberian Academy of Public Administration, Novosibirsk, Russia, and author of From Camp David to the Gulf and Leadership and Democracy.

The newly formed ‘Awakening’ forces set up by the U.S. military are bringing new conflict among people, Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail report for Inter Press Service.

Iraq’s Civil Resistance: The Secular Left Opposition Stands Up, by Bill Weinberg for World War 4 Report.

The Iraq Press Roundup by UPI’s Hiba Dawood.

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